WE NEED to talk about the consultancy work many academics undertake for governments and corporations.

We need to talk about this because it’s the dirty secret of policy-focused academia that no-one mentions publicly, even though it raises huge questions about academic independence and integrity, and the ability of the compromised researcher to provide clear and critical analysis of world events.

There are broadly two types of consultancy work academics do.

First, directly advising governments or corporations, usually receiving generous payment for the latter.

As someone who previously worked as an administrator for a Gulf-funded university research centre focused on the Middle East, I can confirm it is very common for academics researching the Middle East and Gulf states to take on this type of consultancy work – including for oil companies, the dictatorial monarchies in the Gulf and Western governments. I remember one academic, who may or may not be one of the people listed immediately below, telling me they were travelling to Oman to lecture at the country’s defence college (I can’t find any public mention of this).

Here are a few examples of senior academics doing direct consultancy work.

In 2019 the Soas student newspaper uncovered that the British Ministry of Defence had paid Soas – the School of African and Oriental Studies, University of London – hundreds of thousands of pounds for “cultural advice” on how to operate in various locations across the world.

According to a Morning Star report at the time, the work was for “a little-known MoD body, the Defence Cultural Specialist Unit (DCSU)” which was “formed in 2010 in response to the disastrous occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.” One of the academics paid to do a briefing was Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at Soas.

Toby Dodge, a Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, advised General David Petraeus, US Commander of Multinational Forces Iraq, and US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, during the bloody imperialist US-UK occupation of Iraq. Dodge was aptly appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) “for services to UK interests in Iraq” in the King’s Birthday Honours in June.

Charles Tripp, now Professor Emeritus of Politics with reference to the Middle East and North Africa at Soas, briefed Jonathan Shaw, the top UK commander in Iraq, in 2007 (Shaw’s testimony to the Chilcot Inquiry confirms Dodge also briefed Shaw).

The second type of consultancy is more insidious – the framing of research as advice to Western governments, or the sponsors of their work.

As David Wearing, Assistant Professor in International Relations at the University of Sussex, noted on Bluesky earlier this year, “I think it’s fair to say that PolSci [Political Science] tends towards advising  policymakers on how best to carry out their management function within the confines of the prevailing order.”

This type of research is the unquestioned norm in influential think-tanks like the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), and university research centres like LSE Ideas.

In 2015 Wearing surveyed 11 articles researchers from RUSI had recently written for the BBC News website, highlighting how many of the articles were written from the British state’s point of view.

“So close is the author’s identification with the UK armed forces” in one article by RUSI’s Shashank Joshi about Britain’s bombing of Iraq in 2014, Wearing notes that “three times – twice as ‘we’ and once as ‘our’ – Joshi refers to them in the first person.”

Similarly, a 2024 Financial Times article about Nato and the Russia-Ukraine war by Alexander Gabuev, the director of Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre in Berlin, reads like an advisory briefing for Nato leaders, with the text peppered with phrasing like “Nato… needs to,” “Nato should” and “Nato’s response must.”

More disturbingly, in a 2023 Chatham House report about Iraq since the US-British invasion, Renad Mansour declared “a key lesson for international forces seeking to support regime change or political transitions in other states” is “working with a small group of exiles who have lived outside the country to form a new system will likely not lead to democracy.” Regime change, of course, is illegal under international law.

My guess is that many of the academics and researchers whose work is largely made up of de facto advice to Western governments have been so ideologically brainwashed by their elite education, government and media propaganda, and closeness to the Western foreign policy elite, that they are not consciously aware of what they are doing, and certainly won’t think it’s a problem that needs to be examined.

Why do academics continue to undertake direct and indirect consultancy work with governments and corporations?

For researchers employed by, or working with, research centres that receive Gulf funding, it’s keenly understood the funding typically comes with the explicit or implicit expectation the research will be useful to the funder.

The broader culture shift in academia emphasising “impact” also provides a certain amount of cover for scholars looking to work with powerful actors. And obviously the money, especially for consultancy work for corporations and Gulf rulers, can be lucrative for someone on an academic salary.

Working closely with governments and corporations also provides an academic with high-level, influential contacts, and possibly access to information that is not publicly available. And whose ego wouldn’t be massaged by being asked to share their expertise to policymakers and business executives?

Furthermore, the example of senior academics, such as those mentioned above, likely normalises the practice for younger colleagues. Indeed the silence surrounding the mountains of consultancy work that goes on is understandable: consider the likely outcome of a junior academic speaking out about a colleague advising the British military. No doubt they would be labelled a “troublemaker” or “radical”, and might endanger their academic career.

After all, no-one likes to be criticised, and one unofficial function senior academics play is acting as gatekeepers to senior academia itself, often effectively selecting the junior academics who will go on to replace them as senior academics. This process is one important way the dominant ideology on Western foreign policy is reproduced (yes, yes, I know it’s a simplification, and there are exceptions, but I think it reflects how things work in academia, and any large hierarchical organisation).

Going a little deeper, it feels like a particular liberal (and incredibly naive) view of politics and power often underpins the consultancy work I map out above – that governments are well-intentioned and have a broadly positive impact on the world (though of course make mistakes), and will change policy if they are presented with compelling evidence and arguments.

So what should be done?

How about a publicly available register of interests that academics and researchers in the social sciences and arts and humanities are expected to complete?

Or, at the very least, the normalisation of academics declaring their relevant interests, including the source of their salaries, in every publication, be it journal article, policy brief or book – something that is already common in the hard sciences?

More broadly, we need a wholesale reimaging of the role of academics and researchers in society – re-emphasising the noble tradition of standing in opposition to established power, rather than being complicit with it.

On this, I often return to the response Nir Rosen, then at the NYU Centre on Law and Security, gave when asked in a 2008 US Senate hearing what advice he had for the US going forward in Iraq: “As a journalist, I’m uncomfortable advising an imperialist power about how to be a more efficient imperialist power.”

Follow Ian on X @IanJSinclair.